Liberalism is not a morality. Liberalism is an ethic.

The distinction I am making here is this: Morality is unconditional; ethics is contingent upon ethos.

An example of morality is rejection of sadism. There is never a situation where sadism, especially extreme sadism like that of Hamas on October 7th, is justified. Anyone who cannot understand this is a sociopath, or is morally confused to the point of sociopathy. Sadism can be explained, but explanations are not justifications. I am saying here that not only is sadism immoral, but justification of sadism.

The value of a liberal ethic is entirely instrumental. An ethic is a means to the end of supporting a liberal social order — a liberal ethos.

(A point where morality and ethics connect. Morality requires keeping ethical commitments. There are moral ways to renegotiate commitments, and immoral ways to break them. I taught my children that there are no preexistent rules to relationships, but once rules are made, those rules are ethical realities one is morally obligated to honor. And then there is etiquette, which is neither moral nor ethical, but something else of enormous importance.)

For a while now, I have been declaring “mutuality is for the mutual”. When I say this, I refer to ethics, and the ethic I almost always mean is liberalism. But this is not the only ethos. Friendships of various kinds also have their own ethics. Every enduring friendship is its own ethos and has its own ethic and etiquette.

When I make the mutuality declaration what I mean is this. Where there is no liberal ethos, and no reasonable possibility of a liberal ethos, a liberal ethic is not appropriate. Where illiberals are likely to exploit liberalism to undermine a liberal ethos, it is unethical to extend the rights, privileges and courtesies to illiberals.

Yes, this is a very dangerous stance to take. Conditional liberalism is the slipperiest of slopes. But unconditional liberalism is just as slippery, and we have already slipped far from our best liberalism. I meet very few liberals under the age of 40.

And, yes, the line between liberalism and illiberalism is faint, fuzzy and ambiguous. But fuzzy boundaries do not negate the clarity we see at the extremes. We can debate how liberal Winston Churchill or Franklin Delano Roosevelt were, but the fact that Axis leaders were illiberal, and less liberal than Churchill and Roosevelt is beyond reasonable dispute.*

And yes, if illiberalism is presumed, liberalism cannot take root and flourish. Sometimes an intricate and delicate dance must take place between nervous and skeptical liberals to cultivate mutual trust and establish a liberal ethos. It requires both liberals to “go first” and provisionally offer one another liberal courtesies. But there is a point where dancing ends and defensive maneuvers start.

I am still working on this. It does not yet feel complete and flawless. I do think it is fundamental,y right, though, so I’m putting it out there. There will be more.

• Note: Regarding fuzzy lines and clear extremes, if you have a shred of intellectual and moral decency in you, you will admit that, while we can (and should) debate how moral or immoral Israel’s war conduct has been, there is no room whatsoever to dispute Hamas’s evil. Witness Hamas’s enthusiastic, joyous embrace of sadism on October 7, and its explicit genocidal goals. Israel is undoubtedly morally flawed. Hamas is undoubtedly morally depraved: evil. And anyone, however soft-hearted and well-intentioned, who justifies Hamas’s evil is morally corrupt. I stop short of calling them evil, but they support and enable evil to flourish, and that is immoral.